Been offering bookkeeping services for a few years now and found this forum hiding away on Google! Pleased I did - it seems a really useful and friendly forum. Hope I can make a contribution going forward.
Stuart
__________________
Stuart
Birmingham City FC - Blues is my religion St Andrews is my church
I'm based down south in Cornwall. I'm new to bookkeeping as I only started the AAT foundation course recently. Just signed up today although I've been lurking here for a few months now
welcome to the forum. Good to see a few more Brummies on here. I'm based a bit down the M6 in Sunny(!) Cannock. I actually found the site as a link from the bookcert site. (Didn't buy it but was tempted).
Hi Jen,
Welcome to the forum. I can completely relate the addictive statement. For the first six months of this year I had the site permanently open on one screen and I'm sure that I spent more time on it than I did actually working!
Hi Jenny, Welcome to the merry little throng. As mentioned previously we're a really supportive little bunch on here.
Hi Bill, Normal service should be resumed soon. The work in Edinburgh's being off-shored so soon be back to having a screen permanently logged into this site! Hows life treating you matey. Been a while since we last spoke. Are you looking good for January returns this year?
Talk again later, all the best,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Glad to hear normal service will be resumed soon. Maybe not so good for you but the rest of us wont complain
Just working on an awkward one as I speak. Working back from last years final accounts, trying to fill in the blanks. Loads of missing and miss posted transactions on Sage, previous year end not carried out... . Starting to regret this one but hey ho, its all good experience and many lessons learned (Like never trust an aquaintance has done a good job, and always work out a fee and double it!!!)
This particular scenario, is more to do with the previous bookkeeper, who was recommended to the client by his (now ex) accountant. The client is a very poor record keeper, so the accountant suggested he get a bookkeeper and recommended one of his other clients, on the basis that her records were well kept.
Turns out she had no experience other than her own bookkeeping, didn't know how to use Sage properly, had no MLR supervision and mixed and matched VAT (claimed VAT on purchases on the standard basis, and paid VAT on sales invoices on a cash basis). Makes you think, was the accountant aiding and abetting by making the recommendation?
There are a lot of miscellaneous miss postings but the main ones were, posting regular drawings to wages, personal NI payments to the PAYE account, unidentified income entered as Sales with a T9 tax code and, nearly every fuel receipt had personal purchases on as well (cigarettes, newspapers etc), which had not been adjusted and posted to Fuel & Oil.
At the end of the day I was going to use the balances as presented but because the previous end of year hadn't been done, no bank reconcilliations and the VAT accounts had 18 months worth of transactions sitting on them. I had to look a bit closer and realised that was not going to be possible.
The only reason I got the client was because the old bookkeeper was a slight acquaintance and was leaving the country. She couldn't wait to get shot of it. Now I know why.
-- Edited by Wella on Sunday 5th of December 2010 09:50:41 AM
Stuart, whereabouts in Birmingham are you? I'm in Coventry and we do not seem to have enough Midlanders around! Bill has his West Country Possee and Kris with the Caledonians! Good to hear that Shaun will be making regular re-appearences, he's a closet Staffs guy really though!